Comic Info
Comic Name: Avengers (Volume 4)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Dustin Weaver/Mike Deodato
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2013
Avengers (4) #7
Reprints Avengers (4) #7-11 (May 2013-July 2013). The White Event is coming and a new Star Brand has been selected…but was the process natural or altered? As the Avengers realize that the Earth could be facing danger of cataclysmic proportions, the only hope could be an untested hero and the Avengers new world order could be tested!
Written by Jonathan Hickman, Avengers Volume 2: The Last White Event is part of Hickman’s relaunch of the Avengers titles. Following Avengers Volume 1: Avengers World, the series features art by Dustin Weaver and Mike Deodato and were also collected as part of Avengers by Jonathan Hickman—Volume 1 and Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus—Volume 1.
Bendis drove the Avengers into the ground for me. There were too many big events disrupting the comic, too many titles, and too many talking head panels that just felt like jokes. I also disliked Bendis’ approach of taking the most popular Marvel characters for the team. To me, the Avengers were always about giving the underdogs a chance at the big time, and Hickman continues to do that here.
One of the aspects of Hickman’s Avengers that intrigued me (in this volume and the previous volume) was the merging of the Earth-616 and the world of the New Universe. I hadn’t read much New Universe, but the New Universe was going strong when I first started collecting comics. With the arrival of Nightmask in the last volume and Star Brand here (or is it Starbrand one word…they seem to go back and forth), it opens a whole new world to Marvel’s series that has tons of potential.
Avengers (4) #11
A problem I do have with the story is that ever since The Authority came out, the idea of a world police has dominated comics. It does make sense that working together, the heroes of the Earth would be much more effective than taking on threats one-by-one…but it doesn’t always make for fun storytelling. I miss the family aspect of the Avengers (Bendis did do a little of that), but I wish there was a happy medium between the two…plus, some of Hickman’s characterizations feel total out of character like Cannonball and Sunspot. It also feels like the characters get much room to develop here in the nonstop plot that feels like a ton of pieces slowly coming together.
Hickman’s run on The Avengers has potential, but it also seems to lack heart for me. It is a much more mechanical team and the threats and dangers are being held as technical problems. This is a legitimate way to take on danger…espionage, tons of covert team members…plus, I love the addition of Shang-Chi. I just wish that the comic was more “fun”. That is a generic indescribable term, but I think that there is something missing in Avengers, and I wish it would come back. Avengers 2: The Last White Event is followed by Avengers 3: Prelude to Infinity.
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